


As We Were

by ClaraxBarton



Series: AU Alphabet [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Bathing, Gen, M/M, No MCD, mentions of past suicide attempts (not Clint or Bucky), no but did I mention the angst?, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23427739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: Bucky always knew it would come to this. Or maybe he had hoped it would?But the Federation had emerged victorious: Hydra's rebellion was crushed and the vicious warlord Loki had been defeated.Peace, or something like it, had settled over the galaxy once more.All that was left to do, the last bitter step to take in nearly two decades of galaxy wide civil war, was for Bucky to be given his punishment.After all, he had the dubious honor of being the second most famous assassin in the entire galaxy.The Federation had to make an example of him somehow.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: AU Alphabet [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685266
Comments: 46
Kudos: 214





	As We Were

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cielo_Notturno__Liriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cielo_Notturno__Liriel/gifts).



> Beta read by the always amazing Ro!
> 
> So, uh, this is... just a tangle of angst. 
> 
> I promise/hope all of the April AU fics won't be like this but uh, yeah. This is... what it is.

“There isn’t enough tequila in the galaxy for this fucking bullshit.”

The words were a bitter twist in a gruff voice, and they pulled Bucky’s focus away from the smooth surface of the table in front of him to the man sitting across it.

Long and lean, even with his body folded into an egg-shaped chair, Clint Barton had the broad-shouldered, rangy build of a predator. He looked every inch as dangerous as he actually was. Even his face, with its symmetrical features and sharp lines, even as much as Bucky could appreciate it as  _ pretty _ , it was still dangerous. Even his eyes. Maybe especially his eyes. Pale blue, a little - actually, disconcertingly a  _ lot _ \- like Bucky’s own. They were piercing, and they took in everything - from the table to the half-dozen egg chairs, all empty save for the ones occupied by Barton and Bucky, the glass windows on two sides of the room that displayed a tranquil paradise that was completely out of their reach, the solid, black steel of the other two walls of their prison.

He hated, on principle, to agree with Clint Barton on  _ anything _ . But the man was right about this. There wasn’t enough tequila - there wasn’t enough  _ anything _ \- in the galaxy to deal with this fucking bullshit.

Bucky kept his mouth shut, though, because there was really no point in his agreement - and, really, Barton hadn’t seemed to need Bucky’s input thus far in the monologue he had kept running ever since the two men had been escorted to the room and locked in.

It hadn’t been that long, maybe an hour - an hour and a half, at most - but it was clearly long enough for Barton to lose any reticence he might possess and just start spewing invective and derisive commentary about  _ this fucking bullshit _ .

Barton’s eyes caught his, and Bucky startled, unprepared to see anything but hatred in Barton’s clear gaze.

“Fucking bullshit,” Barton sneered and turned away, actually turned his chair away so that Bucky was left staring at the back of the white curve of it while Barton sat facing the glass walls.

Myknoss was one of the planets terraformed during the Golden Age, as the pedantic philosophers called it. A thousand years ago, when humans had more or less figured out what they were doing when they went to planets beyond Terra, when they had ideals for shaping new worlds and new ways of life. Before everything went to shit. Again. As it always seemed to do in human history.

But Myknoss was still as precise, as pervasively beautiful, as it had been when terraformed a millenia ago. There was nothing wild about it, nothing even remotely dangerous, nothing at all like the man sat across from Bucky or like Bucky himself. Myknoss was sculpted with clean lines and curving paths, not just the architecture of the cities but nature itself. From ground cover to oceans and rivers to mountains to forests, it was all gentle and deliberate. 

Bucky hated it. Wished, perversely, that this whole carnival could be somewhere as dark and awful as his brain. Maybe Barbadon, that burnt husk of a world that had been ravaged by war. Durban, the world with three moons in a binary solar system with scorching deserts and deadly oceans. Hell, even Xenophon, the capital of the Federation, a world that had, at some point, probably been something other than steel and concrete and glass but was now entirely covered in the debris and scars and the monuments of man.

His mental tour of the galaxy was interrupted when the door to their room clicked - a lock released - and Barton was instantly on his feet, chair and table between him and the door and Bucky.

Bucky swallowed hard, forced himself to sit still, to remain frozen and free of any reaction to Barton or the door.

Then the door opened and Natalia stepped inside.

He couldn’t help the way he sighed, the way his shoulders slumped, the way tension melted away just at her very presence.

For the first time in ten years, he was close enough to touch her, close enough to see the faint scar on her chin from her childhood, from the time she had thought she was ready to kill, from the time she had tried to turn her knife on herself and only Bucky holding her still and steady had kept the knife from sliding any lower.

Natalia’s sharp gaze swept over Bucky, quick and efficient and missing absolutely nothing. Her expression didn’t change at all as she looked past Bucky and to Barton.

“Tasha.” Barton’s voice was still gruff, but it was more of a whisper, more of a sigh. And his relief was as palpable as Bucky’s own.

And it- 

It twisted something in Bucky.

Because he’d set it aside, until that moment. 

The anger and hatred and fear that he’d lived with for the last ten years, he had set aside sometime in the last day, sometime since the announcement, the  _ pronouncement _ of his fate.

But now, it all came rushing back, and Bucky had to clench his hands into fists to keep from doing anything more.

The whine of his left arm gave him away, though. Natalia’s eyes flicked over to him, and he could feel Barton’s steady gaze like a laser sight even without turning.

“Boys,” Natalia’s voice was steady, clear and sharp, unburdened with emotion, entirely unlike Bucky or Barton.

“Please tell me you came to bust us out or kill us,” Barton said. And the man had made a lot of jokes, had a reputation for laughing in the face of his own imminent - but never successful - death. But Bucky could tell, this wasn’t a joke. Barton was completely serious when he presented Natalia with those two options. Liberty or death.

But Natalia just arched one eyebrow, stepped into the room and closed the door behind her, and walked to one of the egg chairs and sat down. It was between the two men, a very clear symbol, heavy-handed and about as subtle as a brick to the face or any of Barton’s more colorful insults.

“This is going to happen,” she said, still steady. 

Then again, it wasn’t her life being signed away. Not this time.

Barton all but collapsed into his chair, long, long legs sprawling out and back curved into the chair in what might look like relaxation on another man but was so very clearly defeat that it made Bucky’s skin crawl.

“I thought,” Barton started, stopped, licked his lips and closed his eyes and tried again. “I thought the whole point of the Federation was freedom.”

“That’s what you always told me,” Natalia agreed with a small nod, even though Barton couldn’t see it. “That’s why I came with you.”

_ Why you left me _ , Bucky didn’t dare say, could barely even think.

But Natalia’s gaze cut over to him, and he might as well have shouted the words, because she had so very clearly heard them.

Her chin lifted, not quite defiant, but in no way apologetic or submissive. Natalia had made her choice. She had been all of seventeen, still a child even though she had never been a child, not really, and she had walked away from Bucky, from the Red Room, and into Barton’s open arms and the embrace of the Federation.

Bucky had had his left arm cut off while he was awake, entirely without anesthesia of any kind, had been tortured to the point of needing a defibrillator to restart his heart. Nothing had ever hurt as much as Natalia’s abandonment.

“So?” Barton made the word a weapon, sharp and sudden. “Where the fuck is it now?”

Natalia looked back over at him, and Bucky reluctantly did so as well.

There was a terrifying, cold stillness to Barton’s face, to his sprawled body now. Bucky recognized it only because he had seen it in the mirror. Never, ever on the posters or the photos or the vids of Barton that had been passed through the Red Room and, later, Hydra. Barton wasn’t deadly because he was an iceberg waiting to rip you apart unawares. Barton was deadly because he got his target in his sights and never, ever let them go - and never, ever let them forget that they were prey and he was an apex predator.

“Clint,” Natalia started, her voice too warm, too loud after Barton’s.

“Fuck this, Tasha. You  _ know _ it’s wrong. You know- you  _ know _ what it’s like not to have a choice.”

They all did, all three of them, and as much as Bucky despised Barton, he couldn’t begrudge him membership to the horrible club the three of them had been forced to earn.

A lifetime of it, for Natalia, until she walked away ten years ago. Nearly fifteen years, for Bucky, who had been conscripted when the war between the fringe Federation political parties reached his homeworld. And Barton… Bucky knew enough about his enemy’s life, about his childhood, to know that Barton had never, not really, been  _ free _ , but it hadn’t been until the last year, until Clint Barton, infamous assassin for the Federation, had been captured by the warlord Loki and shaped into a tool, made into the most deadly and horrible weapon in Loki’s unfathomable arsenal - it hadn’t been until then that Barton had really, entirely lost his free will. 

A year was nothing, not really, not in the scheme of the galaxy or the terrors of Natalia’s childhood or of Bucky’s adulthood. But this wasn’t the kind of thing that could be measured in time. Barton had killed more people in his year as Loki’s puppet than Bucky had in fifteen years. Not just more, but  _ so many more _ that it was impossible to chart the differences.

Bucky had known, when the treaty was signed, when Hydra’s defeat was announced and their leaders executed and the great warship, the Triskelion, had been ceremonially driven into the sun in Xenophon’s system, that nothing good would come for him or to him. He didn’t deserve it, didn’t even particularly want it. Really, truely, he just wanted it to be over.

That Barton had expected - wanted - something else… Bucky had know they were different, of course, but he had just assumed that Barton was alike in this, shared the complicity of his unwilling crimes with Bucky and was just as prepared to accept the punishments the politicians heaped on them - would know it would never, ever come close to what they really deserved.

It was - weirdly, uncomfortably - disappointing that Barton was different in this way.

“I do,” Natalia was still placid, still unwavering. She always had been. Even when she had wanted nothing more than to end her own life, she had been steady and calm. Even as she fought against Bucky’s restraining hold.

“Then why are you letting them do this to him?” Barton demanded, one arm thrown out in an angry gesture towards Bucky.

Natalia blinked, slow, and it was hardly a show of emotion, but it was enough.

She was as shocked as Bucky.

“What?” Bucky didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to engage in any way with Barton but- 

_ What? _

A muscle in Barton’s jaw jumped and his cheeks were flushed, ever so slightly, just enough pink to really highlight how golden his skin was.

Barton didn’t look at him, didn’t acknowledge Bucky in any way other than that one thrust of his arm.

“He doesn’t deserve this shit, Tasha. You  _ know _ that. Everyone knows that. He didn’t- It’s bullshit. This is the kind of bullshit that led to the war in the first fucking place. I get it, I  _ get _ that they want a fucking show, and it’s not- it’s not the worst idea ever, okay? But not him. Don’t do this to him. Not after all the other shit that’s been done to him.”

It wasn’t the first time Bucky had been talked about like he wasn’t even in the same room. Actually, for the last fifteen years, he had been treated like a thing, like something to be talked about but never talked  _ to _ .

“Fuck you,” he ground out, letting everything - his rage, his anxiety, his weariness - bleed into his voice.

Natalia reacted like she had been slapped, back meeting her chair and eyes going wide.

Barton just glared at him.

“Excuse me?” Barton sneered.

“That’s a pathetic apology,” Bucky sneered right back.

“That’s because it fucking wasn’t one.”

“Don’t- do not, ever again, talk  _ about me _ like I’m not right in front of you, like I don’t have a fucking brain and ears and the ability to understand what you are saying and who you are talking about. Do it again, and I’ll kill you.”

The words were out before Bucky had thought them through, before he processed  _ anything _ . But he didn’t regret them.

Didn’t regret the way Barton’s cheeks went from a blush to stained with red, the way his jaw dropped a little and his eyes squeezed closed and his breath shuddered out of his lungs.

“I’m sorry,” Barton breathed, and he sounded completely wrecked, sounded as if the words were drawn from the marrow of his bones, sounded as if he knew exactly what it was to have your entire self discarded and formed into a tool, to be so dehumanized that you never even thought to question that you weren’t allowed to think.

“Apology accepted,” Bucky said, and hated the way his voice still sounded emotional, still sounded like he  _ felt _ things, and- and that was almost hysterically, hypocritically ironic, considering. But it didn’t change the fact that Bucky hated it.

Natalia cleared her throat, soft and subtle, and it drew both of their attention back to her.

“The ceremony will be tonight. This is going to happen,” she repeated her earlier words, her warning. 

Barton closed his eyes and hung his head.

“Tasha-” he tried again but cut himself off, swallowed hard and shook his head.

“After the ceremony,” Natalia continued on as if Barton hadn’t spoken, as if he wasn’t sitting a few feet from her and so clearly falling apart that even Bucky felt… some kind of way about it. “After the ceremony, the feast will be broadcast, live, across the galaxy.”

Tacky, was Bucky’s first, completely inappropriate thought.

Natalia nodded at him, in complete agreement to his silent assessment.

“And then… then you will accompany Director Coulson on a tour of the galaxy, to demonstrate your unification, the fall of Hydra, Loki’s… the end of Loki’s power.”

“How many planets?” Bucky asked, morbidly curious.

“Thirteen, right now. They’re still waiting to hear back from a few.”

“Why Coulson?” Barton asked, and he sounded gutted, sounded like he was bleeding out right in front of Bucky.

Natalia met Barton’s gaze.

“He requested it.”

Barton clearly didn’t know what to do with that information.

Bucky didn’t think he would, either, were he in Barton’s position. 

Coulson was… was maybe something like Bucky was to Natalia, for Barton. Except Barton had never walked away from Coulson. Had, instead, taken the knife Loki put into his hand and nearly eviscerated Coulson before Natalia herself had stopped him.

Natalia rose to her feet.

“The… priests or whatever they are, will be here for each of you soon.”

Barton huffed a laugh, bitter and small, and it echoed Bucky’s own.

Bucky hadn’t believed in anything - not a god, not gods, not himself - not since he could remember.

But Myknoss was… deliberate, even in this. They’d made their religion, crafted and tailored it to this sculpted planet with complete awareness, and Bucky didn’t know if that made it better or worse. That Myknoss hadn’t invested in a deity because they needed an explanation for the things that they couldn’t explain but because they decided they  _ wanted _ a structure that was as gentle and guiding and present in the lives of their people as the world itself.

It was worse, Bucky decided. He hated it. 

Barton’s sneer was back, and it settled Bucky. Barton hated it too.

Natalia walked out of the room, and her absence felt like a weight pressing down on Bucky’s lungs.

Barton drew in a shaky breath.

“You, uh…” Barton trailed off.

Bucky looked over at him, raised his eyebrows.

Barton licked his own lips.

“You don’t… have anyone, do you?” Barton asked.

Bucky scowled.

“What?”

“There’s not- You don’t have someone, do you? Someone you, you know, whatever? Want or something?”

It took Bucky a moment. It wasn’t like Barton was being eloquent. And it wasn’t like Bucky had ever really been able to think about that kind of thing, to  _ feel _ that kind of thing, for more than a handful of stolen times.

“There’s no one. No one waiting for me. No one I’m waiting for.”

Barton nodded.

“Good. I- Good.”

“Do you?” Bucky felt absurd asking the question. Felt even more absurd when he realized that he actually cared what Barton’s answer was.

“Fuck no.  _ No _ . I’d never do that to anyone.” As if Barton’s very existence was a disease, was a crime, a punishment he wouldn’t dare inflict on anyone who didn’t deserve the very worst.

Fitting.

They fit.

The thought, the realization, wasn’t even ironic. Wasn’t even unwelcome.

Before Bucky could really start to turn the idea over in his mind, though, before he could let it settle, the door to the room opened again. And again, Barton was on his feet and ready to attack.

It was the priests. Or whatever they were. Bucky, like Natalia, had never had any time or patience for religion or mysticism outside of knowing who and what was most useful to control a given situation. But Bucky had never been to Myknoss before. Had never encountered one of their priests, had never  _ cared _ .

“Master Barnes,” one of the priests intoned, voice low and dark.

Bucky reluctantly got to his feet.

“Master Barton,” another directed his attention to Barton.

Bucky heard the other man sigh.

“Yeah. Present.”

“It is time to prepare.”

The word made Bucky shudder, involuntary and awful, as he thought about all of the years, all of the  _ preparations _ .

“Hey.”

It was Barton, his voice sharp, and Bucky glared over at him.

Barton’s lips twisted. Not a sneer. Almost… a smirk.

“See you on the other side,” he said and winked, actually fucking  _ winked, _ at Bucky.

-o-

Preparing Bucky was surprisingly simple, as it turned out, and nothing at all like  _ preparing _ Bucky.

They took his clothes. 

They gave him a piece of dense, sour bread and a cup of cold, too-sweet fermented juice.

And they took him to a room that was something like… a sauna, Bucky thought it was called. It was hot and filled with steam, and it made Bucky feel heavy, made his breathing easy and his brain dull and his heart beat slow and steady.

He had no idea how long he sat there, but, eventually, minutes or hours or days later, another priest came for him.

They dressed him in a robe, something soft and light, long and white, with a hood that came to a peak over his forehead and, Bucky knew without needing a mirror, cast his entire face in shadow.

Bucky followed the priest down a hallway, then another, and then they were stepping into a large room, dark except for the hundreds of candles - real, flickering, hot flames and not digital or electrical - that ringed the room’s perimeter and floated in the large pool of water that covered most of the room. 

There was a dais, rising from the pool and lined with so many candles it made Bucky’s eyes water to look at it. Two priests stood there, in their dark robes with their shadowed faces. 

Across the room, entering from an opposite hallway, another priest and a tall figure in a white, hooded robe.

Even without being able to see his face, Bucky knew it was Barton.

With no warning, Bucky’s priest reached his hands over either of Bucky’s shoulders and let his fingers rest on the clasp holding Bucky’s robe closed.

Bucky’s heart raced, and he struggled to breathe. He- 

He had been maybe a heartbeat, maybe just an actual heartbeat, away from grabbing the priest and breaking his hands and possibly his neck.

It was only because he had been focused on Barton, had seen Barton’s priest reaching for him, that Bucky had been distracted enough to not kill the man now touching him.

Bucky held his breath, held himself still under the unwanted hands.

The priest unfastened the robe and pulled it away, leaving Bucky bare.

Across the room, the pool and dozens of candles between them, Barton was the same.

“You are invited,” one of the priests on the dais spoke up, startling Bucky, “to enter into your union free of the past, with no baggage, with no debts or burdens. You are invited to enter your union together, freely, and join as equals.”

Probably, someone should have told Bucky and Barton what the fuck to do, because they both just stood there, glaring at the priest on the dais.

“Enter the pool,” Bucky’s priest murmured.

Across the way, Barton’s priest gave one of his broad shoulders a gentle nudge, and Bucky could  _ feel _ the tension ratchet up in Barton’s body, could  _ taste _ his restraint when Barton didn’t turn and tear him apart.

Instead, both men stepped into the pool.

The water was warm and dark and heavy. As Bucky kept walking further into it, the pool became deeper, until the water rose above his hips, to his belly.

He approached the dais, keeping his distance from it but assuming that was… probably the general area they were supposed to occupy.

Barton stopped a few feet short of Bucky and the dais.

A priest on the dais - not the one who had spoken - knelt and put something in the water.

It was some kind of tray, a floating one, and the priest nudged it towards Bucky and Barton.

Barton caught it, frown on his face, and held it away from both of them and looked at it like it contained an armed explosive.

It wasn’t. It was, in Bucky’s mind, much worse. He was confident the two of them could easily deal with an armed explosive.

A metal pitcher, a bar of strong smelling, golden soap, a single, delicate sponge.

Barton transferred his frown from the tray to Bucky, and it wasn’t that he was upset with Bucky - he was upset  _ for _ Bucky.

Huh.

“Together, you will enter this union and build your future together,” the priest started speaking again.

Idly, Bucky wondered if it mattered, that neither he nor Barton gave a single  _ damn _ about Myknoss or their religion or, probably, much of anything.

“And together, you will stand strong and solid. You will know each other, protect each other, trust each other and care for each other. Thus, the first step of your future is to care for each other. To wash away the past and cleanse your bodies and minds.”

“Awesome,” Barton muttered. “Always wanted a pool party wedding.”

It was loud enough that the priests had to hear him, but they didn’t acknowledge the words, didn’t do anything but stand there.

With a sigh, Bucky reached for the tray.

He took the sponge and the soap in his hands and looked at Barton. He raised an eyebrow.

Barton swallowed hard, outright grimaced, but then nodded.

Bucky dipped both sponge and soap into the pool and then worked the soap into a lather on the sponge.

He closed the distance between them, stepped close enough that Barton would be able to do him permanent damage before any of the priests could even think to get help.

Bucky touched the sponge to Barton’s shoulder and the man shivered, but he held Bucky’s gaze.

Probably, Bucky figured, this was supposed to be some long, drawn-out process. Probably, when people  _ chose to do it _ , it was the kind of thing that meant something more than a supervised, communal bath.

But Bucky worked quickly, with quiet efficiency, and washed Clint’s body with a firm hand. He catalogued the man’s scars, brain supplying details from mission briefings and countless news articles. But he didn’t know about the tattoo, low on Barton’s right hip, a thin black line that looked like… an arrow? Not a directional symbol, but the ancient weapon. Huh.

When Barton’s skin was warm and red and soapy, all of it that rose above the water, Bucky set down the soap and sponge and picked up the pitcher. He dipped it into the water and filled it.

Barton stepped closer, probably trying to help but…

But the soap smelled, strong and bright and sharp - maybe some kind of citrus - and on Barton’s skin, it was… impossible to ignore.

Bucky drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and upended the pitcher over Barton’s left shoulder.

Water glided down over his chest and belly and arm, golden in the candlelight. 

Barton made some kind of sound, as though he was in pain, and his eyes squeezed shut so tightly it looked uncomfortable.

Bucky continued to rinse him, until Barton’s hair dripped over his forehead and water ran from his nose and everywhere, he was wet and golden.

Bucky set the pitcher back on the tray, and Barton opened his eyes at the sound of it.

With unsteady hands, Barton picked up the soap and the sponge. He gave Bucky a look, waited for Bucky to nod back at him.

And- 

And Bucky knew, in some deep recess of his brain, buried and hidden from even himself, that, once upon a time, he had been touched with something other than violence, with something like kindness.

But for the life of him, Bucky couldn’t remember it, couldn’t remember how it felt or who had done it or  _ why _ .

Even Natalia, even when they sat up late into the night, shoulder-to-shoulder and shared their silent misery, that touch had been wary. They were - still, even now - two animals, feral and all-too aware of how vulnerable they could become in an instant. 

This was… this was not that.

In a fair fight, without weapons other than their own bodies, Bucky honestly didn’t know if he or Barton would come out the victor. He doubted, though, that either of them would survive a real fight between them.

But when Barton lifted the sponge to Bucky’s cheek, pressed it just so, Bucky was helpless to think of anything like leverage and center of gravity and how the scar tissue on Barton’s right shoulder meant it was probably exploitable- 

Instead, all he could think about was the smell of citrus and the warmth of the water and the weight of Barton’s gaze and how  _ soft _ the sponge was as Barton ran it from Bucky’s cheek to his chin and back up again.

“Breathe,” Barton said, voice low, so soft Bucky barely heard it - no chance for the priests to know he had even spoken.

Bucky sucked in a breath, feeling lightheaded and untethered when he realized he had stopped breathing, at some point, and not knowing  _ when _ that had happened.

Barton continued to touch him, the sponge between his fingers and Bucky’s skin. He was firm but… gentle. That was the word for it.

Gentle.

And Bucky had forgotten that was a thing, was a  _ feeling _ . Was a possibility.

Eventually, Barton set the sponge aside and lifted the pitcher, filled it and raised it to Bucky’s head.

Their eyes caught, and Barton’s lips twitched.

He upended the pitcher over Bucky’s head, and Bucky sputtered.

Blinking furiously, trying to breathe and trying not to shake himself and the water and his damn hair out of his eyes, Bucky finally got control of himself.

He opened his eyes and fixed his glare on Barton.

Barton grinned back at him, eyes and face as warm as the water, as soft and golden.

As gentle.

When Bucky was, at last, clean, the priest spoke again.

Bucky hadn’t…

He had known they were still there, of course. But they hadn’t mattered. And he had tucked them away in some part of his consciousness that he could ignore.

And that… wasn’t something he had done in years, not since before he had been conscripted. Not since summer afternoons spent reading and smoking and dreaming. Not since a lifetime ago.

“And thus,” the priest spoke, “together you learn the past. You care for each other, you worship one another and the union you create. And the universe blesses you.”

And that… was apparently it?

The priest on the dais who still hadn’t spoken gestured, and Bucky and Barton both turned to see that two more priests had entered and stood by the pool’s edge, across from the dais. Between them, they held up a length of white fabric.

“Blessing us is making us share a fucking towel?” Barton growled.

Bucky felt the urge to laugh and ruthlessly squashed it. 

But Barton was right.

This was some fucking bullshit.

Together, they waded out of the pool, and, together, they stood there while the priests wrapped the towel/sheet/dry thing around them.

“Fucking bullshit,” Barton muttered, voicing Bucky’s thoughts.

Leaving the room, still wrapped in the towel, they had to shuffle together to follow the priests.

In other circumstances, with other people, it would have been… funny or sweet or something, Bucky was sure.

With them, it was just… intense.

Barton’s body was a hot, hard line against his side, and Bucky could feel the flex of his muscles when he moved, all coiled danger stretching and curving.

It was impossible not to think about, not to feel.

They were led to another room lit by only candles, and on a stone bench, there were two robes, both a dark, warm golden color.

The priests unwrapped the towel and left the room.

“I’m not dressing you,” Bucky felt the need to say as they both stood there naked and stared at the robes.

Barton snorted a laugh, derisive and amused. But not at Bucky’s expense.

He picked up one of the robes and threw it at Bucky.

Bucky caught it and glared at him. Barton grinned.

“Just helping build our union or whatever the fuck,” he said.

Bucky rolled his eyes, but he dressed in the robe and watched Barton do the same.

Another priest came to fetch them, and they were led down more hallways and then outside, to an open pavilion filled with people and candles and food.

Natalia approached them, dressed in a red robe, her red hair loose around her shoulders.

“I’m supposed to offer the first greeting to you,” she said, voice filled with laughter and eyes bright even in the darkness.

“Hi,” Barton said.

Bucky felt his lips twitch.

Natalia smiled, wide and open, and Bucky had never seen that expression on her face before. And he knew, without knowing how or why, that Barton had taught her how to do that.

Bucky had taught her how to kill, and Barton had taught her how to feel joy.

That was… not something he wanted to think about right now - or ever, really. But he knew he would never forget it, now, would never not wonder what else they had taught her, how different the things.

“Welcome to your feast,” Natalia said, somewhere between sincere and amused, “and may the universe always bless your union. You two make… great husbands.”

Bucky could  _ feel _ Barton roll his eyes.

“Gonna make great fucking parners in crime in we don’t get fed immediately,” Barton growled.

And Bucky- 

Bucky had another entirely unwelcome realization.

He and Barton  _ would _ be partners. And not only that… they would be good partners. They were different, so very, very different, but they were also painfully the same.

And…

And Bucky was relieved. Was, in fact, in some small, significant way… okay with it. With this. With Barton.

He looked over at the man. At his  _ husband _ , and found Barton already looking at him.

“You, uh… you can call me Clint, if you want,” Barton said.

Bucky licked his lips, had to remind himself how to breathe.

“Bucky. My- I used to be called Bucky.”

Clint’s eyes creased, his smile was so broad.

“Bucky? That’s the most fucking ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Fucking hell. It’s perfect.”

Clint’s life - and the Federation’s brand new, precious peace treaty - were saved when the food was finally presented to them.

And it was unexpectedly good.

All of it was.

Bucky didn’t know what to do with that. With how it felt, with how he wanted it - the good things, Clint’s gentle touch and his bright smile.

He didn’t know.

But…

But he wanted to.

-o-

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Tomorrow we've got baseball!!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] As We Were](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24918292) by [Flowerparrish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerparrish/pseuds/Flowerparrish)




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